Religion is secularised tradition: Jewish and Muslim circumcisions in Germany

Religion is secularised tradition: Jewish and Muslim circumcisions in Germany

Salaymeh, Lena
Lavi, Shai

English

20210000

This article demonstrates that the legal reasoning dominant in modern states secularises traditions by converting them into ‘religions’. Using a case study on Germany’s recent regulation of male circumcision, we illustrate that religions have (at least) three dimensions: religiosity (private belief, individual right and autonomous choice); religious law (a divinely ordained legal code); and religious groups (public threat). When states restrict traditions within these three dimensions, they construct ‘religions’ within a secularisation triangle. Our theoretical model of a secularisation triangle illuminates that, in many Western states, there is a three-way relationship between a post-Christian state and both its Jewish and Muslim minorities. Our two theoretical proposals—the secularisation triangle and the trilateral relationship—contribute to a re-examination of religious freedom from the perspective of minority traditions and minority communities.

9.5.1

9.5.1; 10; 1.3.5; 1.2

circumcision [pri]; law [pri]; male [pri]; religion [pri]; secularism [pri]

autonomy; Christian ethics; government regulation; harm; human body; Islamic ethics; Jewish ethics; minority groups; parental consent; politics; social discrimination; state interest

Germany

Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. 2021; gqaa063: 1-28 [Online first]. Accessed: January 4, 2021

© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press. Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0

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152 fns

01436503 (print); 14643820 (online)